South Korea's economic experience: Lessons and challenges

Abstract

This article reviews South Korea's economic experience, defining it as a successful case of economic convergence. It highlights a leading role of public intervention to promote export industrialization, with initial phases of protection and then with others of promotion of export of manufactures, adapting education to the economic strategy's challenges. The result shows relevant achievements in productivity, innovation, technological leadership, and a considerably better income distribution than that of Latin America. Finally, the article tries to detect the main axes of this strategy, by discussing the possibility of separating them from the authoritarian political regime that promoted them.